20/06/2024
ON THIS DATE (51 YEARS AGO)
June 18, 1973 - Joe Walsh: The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get is released.
# Rolling Stone (see original review below)
The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get is the second album by Joe Walsh and his band Barnstorm, released on June 18, 1973. It reached #6 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's & Tape chart. It proved to be his commercial breakthrough, largely on the strength of the Top 40 hit single, "Rocky Mountain Way", which helped propel the album into the Top 10.
Walsh is flanked here by Kenny Passarelli on bass (who got the gig with Joe through a recommendation of fellow Boulderite Tommy Bolin - Joe would repay the favor later by getting Tommy into the James Gang ) and Joe Vitale on drums, keyboards, and flute. With producer extraordinaire Bill Szymczyk who was picked to produce the second Zephyr album, but David Givens wanted off of ABC Records because Jimmy Page was blown away by Zephyr and he helped turn them on to Eddie Kramer who got them a deal with Warner Brothers. 
Here is the rather lame original review from Rolling Stone magazine:
“Joe Walsh is out to do the Stephen Stills number by splitting his supergroup and forging out for Musical Freedom and a distinguished solo career (least that's what it says here). Sounds great -- only Joe's band, the James Gang, wasn't that super and while Stills has just now completed the process of consuming himself, Joe's already done a pretty good job of it on only his second solo album.
If there was a James Gang sound, it had to do with Joe's high vocal whine that sounded for all the world like somebody had taught a Moog synthesizer to talk. Some of the old Gang material ("Tend My Garden" on Rides Again) was so contoured to Joe's voice no one else could have performed it. For better or worse, it was the source of the band's identity. Much of Joe's current trouble rests in his lack of one.
I'm all for eclecticism in pop music. Some of this year's best albums (like Paul Simon's and Todd Rundgren's) are distinguished by it. But The Smoker You Drink -- the years best album title -- draws from a number of forms without showing confidence in any of them. Presenting a laid-back Joe Walsh who still wants to rock is as confusing as offering a rhythm guitar-powered riffer who's also taking it easy in Colorado; it is difficult to tell from this album who we're listening to.
"Rocky Mountain Way," with its "The Rocky Mountain Way/Is better than the way we had," is the LP's standout -- and it sounds the closest to the old James Gang. It opens a set which dips down into rhythm-led power tunes, reggae leanings, close-harmonied ballads and acoustic pieces, but never seems comfortable with anything. Ex-Amboy Duke Joe Vitale remains from Barnstorm, with keyboard man Rocke Grace and bassist Kenny Passarilli now added. All are properly subdued, with the exception of Vitale's tasteful flute work on "Midnight Moodies." Mostly, however, the playing is of a detached nature, professional but uninspired.
Joe even gets in some licks himself, especially in acoustic-based tunes like "Happy Ways," which are hardly embarrassing to him; neither do they show off the stuff I believe he has. The results still sound like he's shopping around. Like succotash, this album has plenty of elements, but each is such a meager and half-hearted supply that they lose their individual flavor.
~ Tom Dupree (September 13, 1973)
TRACKS:
All songs by Joe Walsh, except where noted.
Side one
"Rocky Mountain Way" (Joe Walsh, Vitale, Passarelli, Grace) – 5:15
"Book Ends" (Vitale) – 2:45
"Wolf" – 3:09
"Midnight Moodies" (Grace) – 3:39
"Happy Ways" (Passarelli, Bernard Zoloth) – 2:40
Side two
"Meadows" – 4:36
"Dreams" – 5:50
"Days Gone By" (Joe Vitale) – 5:54
"(Day Dream) Prayer" – 1:56
